World Dairy Diary

Sponsors want to make populous New Jersey the 31st state to allow commercial raw milk sales. The National Association of State Departments of Agriculture (NASDA) says 30 states currently allow raw milk sales, although in 13 of those states unpasteurized milk is restricted to on-farm sales.

In the last three years, there have been numerous proposals in state legislative bodies both to ease raw-milk restrictions and to tighten raw-milk regulations. During that time period, NASDA reports five states have increased quality standards for unpasteurized dairy products.

Because of New Jersey’s sheer size, however, there is considerable interest in what steps it may take. It also borders Pennsylvania and New York, where raw milk sales are legal. Not only do New Jersey residents already drive to those neighboring states to pick up raw milk, but there are also some sophisticated delivery routes in place.

The CME’s Daily Dairy Report attributes the increases to good weather but does note concerns about feed quality. October was revised to 15.2 billion pounds, up 1 million from the first guess and 2.5% more than October 2010. Production per cow averaged 1,738 pounds, 16 pounds more than November 2010.

The number of milk cows in the 23 top producing states was 8.48 million head, unchanged on the month and up 108,000 on the year. The U.S. total was 9.216 million head, down on the year and the first decline since the last CWT cull in August 2010.

California was the top producer at 3.343 billion pounds, 2.4% ahead of a year ago, followed by Wisconsin at 2.094 billion pounds, up 1.6%, and Idaho at 1.065 billion pounds, an increase of 1.7%.

Since 2006, somatic cell counts have been decreasing at a similar rate for Iowa, Minnesota and South Dakota, from approximately 300,000 in 2006 to 250,000 in 2010. The national average, based on the Dairy Herd Improvement Association in herds is around 300,000 cells. In South Dakota the number of tests above 400,000 has dropped over the years. He adds that back in 2006, South Dakota had 77.9 percent of the Dairy Herd Improvement Association test days above 400,000 somatic cell counts. By 2010, this figure had drop to 54.1 percent.

“Although highly encouraging this still means that over half of the test days of dairies in the state do not comply with the maximum somatic cell count limit accepted by the European Union,” he said.

He cited research suggesting that chocolate milk has little or no adverse effect on health.

“A container of chocolate milk that a student drinks is more nutritious than a container of reduced- fat white milk that the student throws away,” Daoust told the board.

He gave the board a petition with nearly 1,000 signatures asking for a return of chocolate milk to school cafeterias.

After a few days to digest the student’s presentation, School Superintendent Cynthia A. Bianco decided this week to bring back chocolate milk.

About 20 students in the audience at the board meeting on Oct. 20 applauded vigorously when Daoust finished his presentation and handed the petition to members of the board.

A friend introduced him to Mr. McCloskey, whose passion for reinventing dairy farming and the milk industry was enough to get Mr. Jones to move to Chicago, become chief executive of Fair Oaks Farms’ designer products division and build out a 12,000-square-foot corporate office in the West Loop.

“I understand the cow” but not retailing, says Mr. McCloskey, 59, a veterinarian-turned-farmer. He knows PR, though: The 30,000-acre Fair Oaks Farms he co-owns in Northwest Indiana draws thousands of visitors a year to its restaurant and $10-million visitors’ center, which extols the environmental mission of the farm and subsequent health benefits of its hormone-free products.

Based in part on those numbers, Mr. Jones is convinced they can turn a commodity into designer beverages for children, women, athletes and other groups, at $2 to $4 for 12-ounce and 16-ounce bottles. The shelf-stable Fair Oaks Farms milk products already comes in flavors such as chocolate, strawberry-banana and coffee; six varieties are planned for next year.

The milk separation process—already used to produce milk with varying fat content—is the key. By breaking down milk into its basic components of water, minerals, lactose, protein and butterfat, it can be reformulated to target specific markets.

Five years ago, Select Milk Producers Inc., the Artesia, N.M.-based parent of Fair Oaks Farms, began selling a milk blend, Mootopia, with higher calcium and protein and less fat and sugar to HEB Grocery Co. L.P., a San Antonio-based grocery chain with more than 150 locations in Texas. The men have pitched a similar designer milk beverage to Kroger Co. The Cincinnati-based supermarket chain declines to comment on future merchandise deals. HEB did not return calls for comment.

The research, published in a CDC report titled “Low-fat Milk Consumption Among Children and Adolescents in the United States, 2007-2008,” showed that about 73 percent of children and teens drink milk, but only about 20 percent of them say they usually drink low-fat milk (skim or 1 percent).

“There’s big difference between regular milk and fine-filtered milk,” director of innovation Linda Zink said. “Fine-filtered milk tastes better because all of the impurities found in regular milk are removed through the filtering process.”

“We’re getting a lot of good comments from people about it,” she said. “People like it.”

“Probiotics are ‘good bacteria’ that has been shown to improve digestive health and support immunity,” said Jeff Foster, president of Foster Farms Dairy. “Sales of yogurt enhanced with probiotics have dramatically grown and studies have shown the probiotic used in the Dairy Balance milk delivers more active cultures than yogurt.”

Foster said Ganeden Biotech, makers of the probiotic GanedenBC30, developed the unique strain to survive harsh manufacturing processes — including those used in milk processing — unlike other probiotic strains. This durability also withstands harsh stomach acids, allowing the delivery of more beneficial cultures, according to the news release.

Dairy Balance, which has the same taste, texture and color as milk, is now available at more than 300 Northern California locations. Distribution to more than 500 outlets is scheduled by the end of the year. Dairy Balance milk is offered in whole and 2 percent reduced-fat varieties and has a suggested retail of $3.49 for a half gallon.

Lead researcher John L. Ivy of the University of Texas at Austin says researchers in three related studies compared the recovery benefits of drinking low-fat chocolate milk after exercise to a carbohydrate beverage with the same calories — similar to a typical sports drink — and calorie-free beverages.

The study linked drinking low-fat chocolate milk after strenuous exercise to:

– Improved performance: Trained cyclists had significantly more power and rode faster, shaving about 6 minutes, on average, from their ride time when they recovered with low-fat chocolate milk compared to a carbohydrate sports drink and calorie-free beverage.

– Quicker exercise adaptation: Compared to those who consumed other recovery drinks, chocolate milk drinkers had twice the improvement in the measure of aerobic fitness and adaptation.

– Better body composition: Chocolate milk drinkers gained more muscle and lost more fat during training, with a 3-pound lean muscle advantage at the end of the 4.5 weeks compared to athletes who drank a carbohydrate drink.

“Collectively, our research suggests that low-fat chocolate milk — easily accessible for most athletes — can improve performance and aid training for trained and amateur athletes faced with tough routines,” Ivy said in a statement.

The American Dairy Association of Indiana is in charge of providing the milk that gets handed to the winning driver. Each year, an Indiana dairy farmer is selected to be the person who gets to hand over the bottle of ice cold milk to the winning driver. This is a two year commitment with the first year being a “rookie” year, and the second year being a “mentor” year. The rookie hands a bottle of milk to the winning driver’s chief mechanic and team owner; the “mentor” hands a bottle of milk to the winning driver. Richard Thomas was the mentor and Dave Forgey was the rookie.

The Milkmen had to be at a designated parking lot in downtown Indy by 7:00 a.m. on race day or else the police escort would leave without them. What would have been a two to three hour drive through traffic became a less than 10 minute zip through traffic. Once inside, the milkmen had to take the milk and secure it in their suite. They came back down and talked with fans, handed out Indy 500 pins, and held several interviews on television stations.

Once the milkmen were done giving interviews, they were able to relax and enjoy the pre-race festivities a bit. Again, for you non-race fans, the pre-race festivities are steeped in tradition, including the singing of “Back Home Again in Indiana”, balloons being released before the start of the race, the singing of the national anthem, a fly over by a U.S. military aircraft, the famous line “Ladies and gentlemen start your engines”, and finally the official start of the race—the pace lap. As the green flag waved, the cars take off.

The current upper legal limit of 750,000 has been in place since 1993. Under the PMO, milk from each dairy farm must be tested for SCC at least four times every six months. Most plants test every tank from every farm. If a farm has two samples out of four that are over the 750,000 limit, it receives a notice. If a farm has three samples out of five that are over the limit, it gets degraded and no longer can sell Grade A milk. Before 1993, the legal limit was 1 million cells. Before 1986, it was 1.5 million.

Many in the industry have thought that the SCC limit in the U.S. should be reduced to 400,000 to bring the U.S. regulations more in line with those from other countries, especially those countries that serve the growing global dairy product market. Recently, the U.S. has exported the equivalent of up to 12 percent of its milk production.

The issue came to a head, in part, because of stepped-up enforcement of the European Union’s long-standing regulation that dairy products imported from the U.S. be from sources with SCCs below 400,000. This now was deemed to apply to each individual farm, not just the average of a group of farms.

Proposals to lower the SCC limit to 400,000 have been submitted by the National Mastitis Council several times. The proposals primarily have been rejected on the basis that SCCs/mastitis constituted an animal health issue, not a human health or milk safety issue. There was more support for lowering the SCC limit at this week’s NCIMS meeting. USDA’s Dairy Industry Advisory Committee recommended that a farm-level, Grade A SCC limit of 400,000 be implemented over a 48-month period or less.

Both National Milk Producers Federation and the National Mastitis Council submitted “400,000” proposals with full implementation by 2014. According to Anne Saeman, executive director of NMC, the NMC and MNPF proposals were similar enough that they both were revised slightly and submitted as one to improve chance of passage.

They found neither weight nor body mass index (BMI) had changed noticeably six months after children switched to low- or reduced-fat dairy products.

Instead of trimming their waistlines, kids who slashed fat intake appeared to compensate by eating more calories from other sources, according to the new findings, which appear in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

Still, there might be other benefits to cutting back on saturated fat, said Dr. Frank Franklin, a retired professor of nutrition and pediatrics at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, who was not involved in the study.

For instance, it might help kids stave off heart disease as they grow up, Franklin told Reuters Health.

For the study, Gilly Hendrie and Rebecca Golley of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization divided 145 kids ages four to 13 into two groups. The researchers asked one group to replace their dairy products with low-fat varieties for six months, while the other got no dietary advice.

Both groups consumed similar amounts of dairy products, and the total calorie intake remained more or less stable over the study, which was supported in part by Dairy Australia.

Nurses interviewed the kids and parents on their dairy eating habits at the beginning of the study, and at three and six months. They also drew blood and measured BMI and waist circumference.

The low-fat group did consume less overall fat. At the end of the study, they got 13.3 percent of their total calories from saturated fat, compared to 16.6 percent in the comparison group.

This is a significant change, Franklin noted, but still above the 10 percent recommended by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. He added that American kids generally are closer than Australians to getting the recommended amount.

There was also a small drop in cholesterol levels in the low-fat group, but their waistline, BMI and weight were no different.

According to Greg Miller of the National Dairy Council (NDC), which represents the industry in the U.S., this falls in line with other research on kids, where milk shows either a positive or neutral impact on body composition.

“A lot of researchers say that if we just get people to consume low-fat or reduced-fat products, we can have an impact on weight,” Miller told Reuters Health.

But as this study shows, the kids made up for the lost calories elsewhere in their diet. So looking at milk alone is not that helpful, Miller said.

Franklin said it’s safe to switch to leaner dairy products, which have less cholesterol but the same amount of nutrients, mainly calcium and vitamin D.

Panelists representing varied perspectives of the dairy industry supply chain shared their views on changing global standards for dairy products.

A panel discussion held at World Ag Expo explored the topic from several viewpoints, including:

* The impact regulatory changes have on the value and market for dairy products
* How increased focus on milk quality standards impacts milk production
* Opportunities for dairy producers to improve their milk quality

The Committee suggests that using objective measures of sector hardship can reduce political pressures in the allocation process. The Committee recommends that the Secretary implement trigger levels based on the difference between average milk prices and a new measure of feed costs . The Secretary can then objectively determine when dairy farmers face extreme hardship by examining whether the difference between revenues and costs fall below specific trigger levels. Extreme hardship would justify shifting governmental resources from other uses. Within this framework, the first trigger would indicate use of a food assistance program to increase demand for dairy products. At the second trigger, the DPPSP purchase prices may be raised. The Committee recommends applying these responses cautiously.

5. Milk
Got milk? Lempert predicts that more of us will start drinking milk regularly for dietary reasons.

“I’m predicting the rise of milk, not as flavored or sugar-added but plain old milk,” said Lempert. “It’s about really touting the whole aspect of vitamin D deficiency. People understand the solution isn’t to overdose on supplements, but getting those vitamins naturally from foods.”